Tag Archives: mobility

Being able to move unimpeded and pain free is something a lot of people want.

All it would take is one quick google search and you’d find all the information you need to put a plan together, alas many of us are too lazy for that, thus we will just let our body slowly stiffen and lose its ability to move well.

When I’m away teaching there are a few key drills I will put in to warm ups to see how well people move, it’s also easy to spot just by looking at people who that is.

Total body coordination is something we’d really do well not to lose.

It’s it quite surprising how many people will watch the other people in the groups I teach that move what I’d consider ‘normally’ and are like “OMG, wow, that’s amazing.”.

Ummm not it’s not, that’s something we everyone should ideally be abel to do, so in truth the people that can more are not amazing, you’re just really really broken in a moment sense.

Don’ts get me wrong, I’m not talking about people moving like Ido Portal from day one.

More along the lines of having basic coordination skills and not making yourself look like your 80 because of how crap your movement skill is.

These are the three main movement I will get people doing (they give me all the knowledge I need).

If the facility has one then I’d also like to see a rope climb as well, beginner level is using feet, I’m ideally after people to climb and descend using arms only.

The reason for these is simple, the first tests mobility/flexibility/stability.

The second looks at mobility, stability and strength.

The third is mobility, balance and movement coordination.

If we have a rope then that tests strength because I’ve found that while some people more well they are very weak.

When time is short and I need one simple test to assess everything in one go it will be the TGU (turkish get up), I will proceed to see how heavy they can go with the gold standard being 1/2 their bodyweight per hand, if someone can do that then good things happen.

Give the above a try, you can hope on YouTube and find them all easily if you’re not sure what they are.

You’ll also find adding these to your assessment methods will highly who need what and in what dose.

Try them yourself because while you don’t need to be perfect at everything you do, you need to be competent in demonstrating it well, otherwise you may look a tad foolish.

Once you’ve gone through this you’ll find you’re back at the heavy day being for pull, you can choose to keep the lifts the same and try to hit a higher load or you can perhaps change the lifts, pick your poison.

This allows for a constant rotation of days and keeps things interesting, if you are constrained be the working week and days you can train then you may need something a little different, in which case all you need do it ask for the answer.

A great tool that hits every aspect of your being, in every way imaginable.

The big 5 are as follows:

48kg = Beast

40kg = Bulldog

32kg = Badger

24kg = Fox

16kg = Rabbit

*The beast has always been called the beast, the others picked up names via the SFG/RKC/Kettlebell Communities and they’re awesome.

8kg jumps a truly mammoth task to achieve.

Such jumps require a good amount of time to achieve, this is where a lot of people lose their drive with kettlebells, the results are not fast or flashy and you need to be willing to invest years of your life in to them.

In the modern world patience is in short supply.

Which bells of the above can you handle?

Those are the standard milestones that many should aim to achieve in regards to kettlebell work.

If by the end of a long journey you can swing (single arm), snatch, press, pistol, chin & get up the Beast for multiple reps there is a good chance you’ll have a body that is built to last for a very long time.

We do have 4kg jumps in-between the lager bells, and these are useful, when it comes to kettlebells I wouldn’t recommend anyone goes up in less than 4kg.

If you just read that and are sat thinking 4kg is too much then you need to rethink your life because clearly being strong both physically and mentally are not high on your agenda, this needs to change.

There are no set in stone names for the middle bells, some have floated around, yet few have taken like the main 5 above.

12kg

20kg

28kg

36kg

44kg

What do you feel they could be called?

Leave your thoughts below.

In closing.

These simple pieces of kit are hard to beat in regards to the multiple elements of fitness they hit when using them, mobility, balance, tension, skill, power, and so much more, for the average person there would be little need for any other kit, well, perhaps a pull up bar (or chin/dip station to hang some gymnastic rings on), other than those additions, you’d be golden.

Of course you could add in ropes and other such bits of ‘functional’ training kit, however if there is one thing I’ve learned over the years it is this.

^^ A sentence many a man has said over the years and continues to say to this day.

“I want to be lean and strong”

^^ Something I’m pleased to announce more women are saying, it seems there has been a shift in them saying ‘I just want to be skinny’ to now learning the benefit of being lean and strong, it’s great to see.

While it is only my opinion, I feel everybody should be strong.

I’m not talking about record breaking strong, just strong enough to stay healthy and stave off the effects of ageing on the body.

These sports all centre around lifting:

– Weightlifting (olympic lifting)

– Body Building

– Powerlifting

– Strongman

– CrossFit (some may not like this one)

Did you know lifting weights can have the following positive effects on the body:

Personally I’d say the mental improvement is the pivotal one as this can have the biggest impact on a persons life in a very positive way.

However….

If you’re not an athlete and lift for health/confidence you should do it because you enjoy it, not because you feel you have to, that’s the secret to balance and long term sustainability.

Don’t eat yourself up if you miss a session, chalk it up to life and sue it as a rest day, that way you’ll be more motivated when you get to go in, excited to train in fact. Keep this in mind and you’ll find you don’t fall out of love with training.

What if lifting isn’t for you?

That’s cool, find soothing you do enjoy, here are some other options for improving strength and all achieving all the other benefits mentioned above:

Simply because if you’re not stable your body will naturally inhibit the ROM you can achieve because it is unable to fire its neural pathways in the required sequence.

Mobility is before strength due to the fact that to lift heavy things pain free and reduce injury you need good/optimal mobility.

If you ensure you have stability/mobility then your strength will progress. When you start to find yourself stalling take a look at the first two because the chances that one of them is now being compromised to try and accommodate a heavier load is high, meaning you might need to sort them first.

What is meant by Strength A & Strength B?

A – Overall strength to perform the movement while keeping optimal/correct form/alignments.

B – You have a weak link in your muscular/kinetic chain that needs individual/specific focus (such as spinal erectors in the front squat, triceps in the over head press, etc).

Take a look at all of your lifts, if they stall go back and from upwards from stability until you find the weak link. If you do this you will find you break lifting plateaus and also better understand your own body.

In recent times the popularity of Olympic Weightlifting has come to the forefront, propelled their by the likes of CrossFit and the Russian man mountain known as Klokov and other such greats have helped inspire lots of young people to start to venture down the route of the Quick Lifts as they were once known.

Weightlifting has been called many things, but the one I feel that describes it best is ‘Gymnastics with a bar in your hands” why that dictation? Because you have to be explosive, powerful, strong and most importantly mobile to achieve decent form in both lifts.

One of the nice things about weightlifting is that you have two major lift to specialise in (okay, technically 3 as it’s a Clean and Jerk, but they are done once after the other making them only one lift in competition). This give you, in my opinion, one of the simplest plans to stick with – Improve those two lifts or as I would rather say: Chase Performance.

By specialising in only two lifts this means all of your assistance work and training will be centred around improving their performance and building a balanced physique that is, for lack of a better word, ‘functional’ because you need to be pretty dynamic to be good at both of the Olympic Lifts.

You will often find a program designed around these lifts will be very simple and specifically tailored to improve your performance and ironing out any weak areas in those lifts.

If you fancy giving these a try I would suggest you find yourself a decent Coach or Weightlifting club, trust me, being self taught in these lifts will not get you to the places you want to go, but a coach or a club will. While a program involving the lifts wouldn’t make much sense for you right now there is plenty you can do to help you start to strengthen the areas you need, here is a nice basic example for your consideration.

B2 – Jumping Shrug With Dumbbels x8-12 (don’t go nuts, perform a slight bend int he knees and the a light jump followed by a shrug – aim to get your shoulders by your ears)

C1 – Barbell Bent Over Row 4×8-12

C2 – Reverse Fly x12

D1 – Medial Grip Pull Up 3-5x Max Reps

Feel free to add in some ab roll outs, planks, hanging leg raises if you so wish.

This simple program will help you start to find a groove for the early steps of learning the Olympic Lifts, you may even find one day this program looks a lot like the assistance work you might be doing.

Today it’s time to talk about technique, or more importantly your ability to preform correct technique.

There are lots of compound exercises that require certain amounts skill, but that’s not really in question that often because the average gym goer forgets one crucial element, most compound exercises also require adequate mobility to be preformed correctly.

Before I move on let us establish what mobility actually is.

Mobility, or joint mobility, is the ability to move a limb through the full range of motion with control, people often get mobility and flexibility confused.

Mobility is based on voluntary movement (squatting to full depth for example) while flexibility involves static holds (touching your toes) and is often dependent upon gravity or passive forces. Mobility demands strength to produce full-range movement, whereas flexibility is passive and not strength-dependent.

It is possible to have good mobility without being especially flexible, after all, someone who is able to perform a full overhead squat won’t necessarily be able to do the splits. Just as someone who is flexible can have poor mobility, i.e., control. Of the two, mobility is more important. It is better to be inflexible with good mobility than flexible with poor mobility.

Mobility isn’t just required for lifting weights though. having good mobility will also improve your quality of life too. In an ideal world you would wake up every morning and perform a mobility routine to help prepare your body for the trials of the day. it doesn’t have to take long, 5-10min is more than sufficient and you can do it while your breakfast is cooking.

Here is a sample routine that you can do at home and before your workouts each and everyday.

Rocking Ankle Mobilization (walking on the inner/outer portion of your foot for 20 meters per side)

Quadruped Crawl (bear crawl) 20 meter

Squat with chest expansion and arm swings

Squat hold with shoulder dislocation (sit in a deep squat and hold a towel in both hands and try to take it fro the front of your body over your head and touch your lower back)

Spidermans (also called a low lateral lunge from side to side)

Reverse Lunge

Bonus: Static Stretching

There are lots of mobility routines available on YouTube and other such websites, the one above is a simple suggestion, i would do some research and find one that works for you and takes less than 10min to do each day.

It’s no secret that squats are an essential part of life, in fact they are so important they’re one of the first things you learn how to do as a child but as we age the years of sedentary life cause us to lose our movement pattern, resulting in poor or no squats as we age.

This is saddening.

There are several ways in which you can get back your lost squatting talent, all it takes is a couple of simple drills done int he AM/PM and you’ll be good to go, no weight is required for the drills, only yourself, a wall and a box.

Drill 1 – Box Squat – AM

Find yourself a box that is around 1foot tall (or at least under your knee joint level). Take a comfortable stance and descend to the box , initiating the movement by gently pushing your hips back and opening your hips until you rest not he box. Once down stay tight and pause for 1-2seconds then drive straight back up and repeat.

12-20 reps for 1-3 sets daily will help you start to groove your movement again.

Drill 2 – Deep Squat Sit – PM

This is a common practice in several countries around the world and you can do it in front of your favourite soap or box set. Take a hip width stance and squat all the way down (Hold your hands out in front for balance, or hold on to something for the first few attempts.), aim to stay there for 5min initially and try to build up to 10. Feel free to shuffle your feet around to find a comfortable position that allows you to open your hips and keep your upper thoracic extended – your upper back.

If you practice these two drills you will find not only your squat will improve but also your mobility in moving around generally.